


Artifacts of Confection

by whilst



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Noir, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilst/pseuds/whilst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't that Jane didn't have the dough.</p><p>Bakery/Criminal Investigators AU featuring the intrepid assistant Jane Crocker and her not-so-hapless coworker, Terezi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artifacts of Confection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ribbontype](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribbontype/gifts).



**Introduction**

Three hours after the conclusion of their first date, Jane decided to check in on _Pastrykind_ and found Terezi Pyrope in the oven.

 

**Background**

Technically, Terezi was the new-hire baker. Well. Not so much _technically_ as _nominally_. _Nominally_ , Terezi was a baker, but in actual fact, during their shared shift, it was really Jane who conducted all the baking. For the good of everyone involved.

Jane, Dad Crocker's daughter, by all rights should have been any other position but assistant at _Pastrykind_. She was uniquely suited to all facets of bakery running; years of pure fannish devotion in flagship programs immersively-viewed through her customized tiaratop had given her a powerful edge at wielding every utensil specibi invented. Eventual ascension to corporate leadership had been all but expected, and the baker position – Terezi's position – had first been proposed as an internship. Bakery assistant hadn't even featured as an achievement rung on her glorious echeladder.

Until at sixteen, she turned to crime. _Solving_ crime, that is. It was hard to grow up in a city like Slick's and not soak in a little of the ambiance. Rumour had it that the empyrean Betty Crocker threw a fit continents-wide when her heiress deserted, but Jane had dreams of her own. She had known long before she'd been given a name that her fortuitous path lay in another direction entirely.

Jane's dreams were slinky and gritty, hardboiled even, with low key lighting and extravagant metaphors. She had the appropriate connections to the Midnight Crew who ran the town. She had the appropriate long trenchcoats and moustaches. She knew how to order breakfast foods at diners. Jane's dream was to be a P.I. of the old school and she had worked damned hard at it until chronic migraines and dizzy spells forced her to lay aside her fedora while she made ends meet. Dreams don't pay the bills, and when key ingredients of the noir lifestyle failed to emerge, she resigned herself to regrouping in the field she knew best and hoping none of her uncles learned or let slip to their corporate empress just how far her prodigal had fallen.

Now Jane Crocker was an assistant at _Pastrykind_ , a catchall position that included working the front, the back, the incipisphere, and covering for anyone else on shift who needed it. It was this last part of the description she had been creatively reinterpreted for the past two weeks, all so the cute new-hire could keep her job. She and Terezi were hired at the same time, and from day one, Jane had been captivated. Terezi oozed competence and terrifying insight, although neither managed to manifest in her culinary creations. No manner of stalking, unnerving sightless glasses, or introspective licks make up for disaster-muffins and catastrophe-cookies. Some of her creations could be classified as modern art. None could be classified as food.

Which was all very strange because her affairs were very much in order. Jane had read through the resume herself. Her cover letter had been moving.

Jane, general assistant and family disappointment, never ran a private online macaroon business but at least knew how to grease a pan. She might grow confused, but never about her wets and drys. She lost time, but never because she wasn't brave. A few weeks of dancing around one another, and she asked Terezi out.

The date, as it happened, had been going exceptionally well, right past its conclusion and into Jane's exciting oven discovery.

 

**Methods**

"Look, I can explain."

In spite of running on a two-shift business model to account for the sleeping models of multiple species (and the unwillingness of any teenagers to de-coop early), _Pastrykind_ still saw several hours of downtime a day. Jane didn't make a habit of dropping by unexpectedly, but she'd been noticing some strange happenings and she'd wanted to encourage the cautious return of her curiosity.

Typical for dead-air time, the lights were off and the door was locked, and the most she had been expecting in the oven was burnt crusts, maybe the odd suspicious memo toasted illegible. Instead what she found as Terezi, straight-faced and covered in soot.

"Look, I can explain," seemed like a good a start, would have been a good start if Terezi hadn't followed it up with, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." 

And really Jane should have seen it coming. It had been a comment of Terezi's that had tipped her off to the strange happenings in the first place. 

"What are you even doing in there?" said Jane.

"Investigating temporal anomalies," said Terezi with no conviction whatsoever. A glint of metal in her hands pulled Jane up short. "I thought this might be a time machine." 

"You're a police officer!" Jane accused.

"The Time Police." Terezi sniffed nervously and tried to shove the offending article behind her back. "I'm going to need to confiscate this oven."

Jane snatched it up with not resistance. "MCPD, and your name right here. On you _badge_." 

"Objection." Terezi rapped the tiling with her cane. "I'm blind. Waving that in front of my nose doesn't—hmm. All right, not the time police," Jane snorted, "But I made detective. That's cooler. And more accurate." 

There was pressure building at Jane's temples and she forced herself to breath steadily. Being in love was wrecking havoc on her focus. Being in love also had its chemical perks – a month ago, and this would have had her skull in a vice. Her episode frequency had dropped precipitously. "What's a police officer doing working at _Pastrykind_?" _Couldn't they have chosen one who knew how to bake?_

Terezi had a distant look in her unseeing eyes, worn and a little haunted. She licked a nearby spatula, apparently out of habit, and chewed on the tip with a pensive, distracted air. "Baking..." she said at last, "Baking has always my passion. I am devoted to providing pastries for trolls and humans and all others alike. It is my true calling. The smell of fresh pastry goods is all that can get me out of bed some mornings."

"You don't get up, mornings! You're a troll; you're nocturnal!" Jane argued, taking the spatula back. It wasn't too mauled to save. Into the sink it went. "And you work the night shift anyway," she adds. She feels her Prankster's Gambit taking the hit. 

"Undercover," said Terezi in a cool flat voice Jane admired, you know, professionally. "I need the dee-elle on the Felt." She gives Jane a jaunty look that should be accompanied by some sort of hat. "Words is, they're using the _Pastrykind_ to pass information on the sly. But there's no sign of them."

It had been Terezi who had first convinced Jane to lay aside her tiaratop to CL34R YOUR M1ND! It had been Terezi who had suggested Jane look more deeply into the details of their personnel and clientele. And Jane had trained in observation. Not the way she had trained to bake, but—

She'd _seen_ the shady brand of customer their little shop tends to pick up. It added color to the neighborhood. "The cinnamon rolls," she croaked. 

"What about them?"

"There are strips of code in the cinnamon rolls." She shrugged a little hopelessly. "We put new ones in every few days. I thought it was for some sort of meme, but you know the kind of carapace that likes a good roll. It's not the Felt, but..."

Terezi smiled like a shark.

 

**Results**

No one expected Citizen Number One Spades Slick to have connections to an organization like the Felt, and there were rumours of an even higher connection—a shadowy dame pulling the strings beyond the borders of a single town. While ongoing investigations of the rest of the Midnight Crew put local politics in lockdown, daily life somehow staggered onwards.

In the meantime, Terezi, at least, was out of a job. Or, out of the one she was actually trained for. _Pastrykind_ , bolstered by its affiliation to Crocker Corp., was doing well considering recent turmoil and remaining undercover at the bakery was really the safest place for the troll detective who had pulled rug out from under the carapacian kingpin.

Besides, there was still work to do.

 

**Discussion**

"So you wanted to be a P.I.," Terezi said the next time their breaks cooperated long enough for a clandestine rendezvous beneath a dusky streetlamp. Jane knew the effect was lost in her girlfriend, but that just meant she just needed to try harder to appreciate it for the both of them.

"That's right. I got almost everything I need, too. Made the connections, did the readings, picked out the office space, the furniture, the outfits." Jane's breath was a melancholy plume of gold in the light.

"What was missing?" Terezi had a careless way of pitching her voice when she was curious; it was impossible to tell how sincere she was about anything she said. Jane thought this time she was sincere.

She rolled her eyes anyway. "I didn't have the dough," she said, because she had to.

"Heh heh heh," Terezi said instead of laughing. "Taken care of." She waggled her eyebrows. Terezi's sharp features could cut from this angle, as neatly and dangerously as her cane, as her horns, as her mind. Jane pulled her deeper into the shadows.

"Well, then there were the headaches."

"But those got better." After the tiaratop, she didn't add. Their joint investigation had been taking enough exciting turns that Jane felt quite safe in her decision to never- ever don it again. "Tell me." 

"You're going to laugh." 

"Probably," Terezi replied, nostrils flaring. "Tell me anyway. I want to know." 

_She can smell lies_ , Jane remembered, and pulled her into a messy kiss that had much more tongue than advisable. "The thing that was missing, that I needed--" She stopped. "What I really need, now," she started again, "is a partner."

Terezi did laugh, but she didn't disagree.

 

**Conclusion**

She's a runaway heiress with a pocket full of mustaches and a knack for weaponizing cake. She's an ex-cop with a smile full of needles and a two left claws in the kitchen.

Together they fight crime.


End file.
